Every news site, blog, podcast, etc., is erupting with the recent happenings in Afghanistan. The Islamic extremist terrorist group, the Taliban, has gained control of Afghanistan after the ex-president, Ashraf Ghani, accepted a peaceful transition of power soon after he fled to UAE with a sack of money. Handing over his entire country to an extremist terrorist group shows not only his cowardice but also his lack of patriotism towards his country. Being president, or now ex-president, he should have shown love, passion, patriotism towards his country and towards his people. While he fled to UAE, he is probably sitting in a hotel with servants and sunny skies and whatnot while the people of what should be his nation are literally running for their lives.
Did he not think once of what he is leaving behind? The millions of lives and futures and careers he's putting in jeopardy? The years and years of repression to follow? The consequences to his cowardly and un-president-like behaviors putting lives at stake?
Women and girls age 12 and older are being forced to marry members of the Taliban. They are knocking door-to-door looking for these girls, encircling them in a vicious life of rape, labor, and oppression. No education, no growth, no freedom, only a life of restriction and repression. The amount of restrictions that have been imposed on these young girls and women is bizarre. They were kicked out of their offices while the Taliban claimed that their positions would be reprised by males. Education from now on would be extremely scarce for females. Being a girl, my head cannot wrap around the amount of curtailment of human and women's rights.
This nation had always been on the edge. With the Russian and the American governments deploying their troops in the far hopes of shutting down this mass criminal/cult organization, these people have experienced large amounts of terror, trauma, and many sleepless nights. Once these troops were extracted once and for all, the reign of terror fully began. The Taliban are mainly categorized by their systemic violations and restrictions against education, repression of human and women rights, extremist behavior regarding religion and freedom, violent use of arms for the purpose of spreading their agenda and for corporal punishment, etc. With a country in their hands, it is bound that these curtailments will be raised to a higher level.
I believe that every religion should be given equal respect, but when an ideology is raised to a level where it can be termed extreme or when it is blown out of proportion including disrespecting and not following even the most basic human rights, that's when it loses not only mine but the world's respect.
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Cover Photo by Mohammad Rahmani on Unsplash
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